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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
This research entitled “Design of Casting Mold for Natural Fiber-Metal Matrix Composite Material”. Generally this chapter provides information about background,
problems statement, objective and scopes of the project. Besides that, outline of the study also included in this chapter.
1.1 Background of Project
Casting is a process where liquid material poured into a casting mold to produce desired parts. According to Federation of Malaysian Manufactures FMM, there are about 16
companies who involve in casting process in Malaysia. Obviously, the casting industry are grown well in past few years and the opportunity to work in this industry are wide
since this industry requiring more expertise to run this casting more efficiently. In Malaysia, this industry is growing rapidly specially in sector of manufacturing such as
automotive, aerospace and shipping.
2 Generally, the quality of casting outcome must be archived in order to satisfied customer
requirement by customization in customer desired shape. The quality of product is considering the dimensional accuracy and surface finish. These both considerations can
be controlled with process choice and design parameters. The best quality product outcome can reduce production costs, processing time, and to assure reproducibility of
the casting operation and increase of production.
Using casting so many parts or products can be produced, in that case this project will take a look into casting a production tooling parts such as cutting tools. To fabricate this
cutting tool, material that usually used is cast iron, high carbon steel, silicon nitride and many more. So in order to reduce raw material usage in this kind of applications and to
get better mechanical properties, this project focuses on to introduce natural fiber - metal matrix composite as a material for casting mold.
It is very hard to combine metal matrix composite with natural fiber but there is a possibility to combine this both materials. Method that will use is sand casting process
where the molten metal of the metal matrix composite is poured is the casting and adds the natural fiber at suitable temperature. This process done by using open mould sand
casting with the metal used were Aluminum Alloy LM6, Titanium Carbide and the natural fiber is Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunch OPEFB.
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1.2 Problem Statement
